


and yet the wheels keep turning

by Anonymous



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Depression, Drug Use, Emotional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Two: The Wretched, Family Loss, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I'm Sorry, Kinfic, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), Marijuana, Mother-Son Relationship, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Parent Death, Post-Loss, Recreational Drug Use, Shock, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drug Use, potentially romantic but whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 08:53:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17846309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: life goes on.and here we stand.





	and yet the wheels keep turning

_"The change of seasons always gets to her. It's just a bad cold. She'll be okay."_

The words rang in his head now, beating at the walls of his skull like mallets against wardrums. A single tone flooded his ears (a simple B-flat, part of him noted, as though trying in vain to distract from the scene before him). Even as he was pushed aside, he kept one hand outstretched, reaching desperately for his mother.

_No, please. Not her too._

His knees started to give out beneath him. He vaguely registered small hands on his back and chest. Someone gripped his hand. A blurry mass of tan and orange tried to pull him away, but his feet had turned to lead in his shoes.

"Mom."

He crumpled as much as they allowed him. He was held up, if one can even call it that, by a much shorter, trembling boy. Someone lifted his arm and put it around their shoulder. He was all but dragged from the room.

"Time of death?"

"Eight fifty-two PM." 

* * *

The ride home was an eternity compressed into less time than it took him to even blink. One moment, he was there in the hospital room. The next, someone was leading him to his bedroom and sitting him down on the bed. His chest felt hollow. Everything sounded like he was underwater.

Sal snapped his fingers.

"Dude, c'mon," he said. There was a hint of exasperation in his voice. "Talk to me."

Larry rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Sorry," he mumbled. "What'd y'say?"

Sal sighed. He sat on the bed and leaned his head on Larry's shoulder. "You don't gotta be sorry, dude," he said softly. "'M just worried about you, y'know?"

"Yeah." His tongue was thick in his mouth. He glanced around his room. He faintly registered Sal undoing the clasps of his prosthetic and letting it fall into his lap as he wiped his eyes with scarred wrists.

"I know," Sal muttered. "I mean-"

"Yeah. I get it." He sighed, lying back on his bed to stare at the ceiling. "Just . . ." Another sigh. "Iunno."

"Yeah." Sal put his prosthetic back over his face and secured it in place. "Do you . . . I dunno. You want anything?"

Larry shrugged. He waited a moment before he spoke. "I don't know if I can, uh." He cleared his throat. "Can I, uh. Shit." He sat up and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. "Fuck."

"Yeah, you can do both of those."

Larry smirked and shoved Sal. "Shut up."

Sal laughed a little. "You wanna come up to my room?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Yeah, c'mon." Sal stood, then pulled Larry to his feet. "Let's get'cha outta here."

"Yeah. This is- yeah."

"Yeah. We can handle that later."

"Yeah. We- wait, we?"

"I mean, if you don't want me to-"

"No, I mean. That's fine. If you wanna, then. Yeah."

"Yeah." Sal paused, glancing around the room. "C'mon."

Larry followed Sal out of the room, flicking the light switch as they left the room. 

* * *

Larry stared silently at the ceiling. His eyelids drooped, but sleep continued to slip through his fingers. He groaned softly, sitting up from the sleeping bag on the floor of Sal's bedroom, and rubbed his eyes before he glanced at the clock on the nightstand.

_1:34 AM_

He sighed through pursed lips, pulled the Super Gear Boy out from underneath the bed, and switched it on. "Okay, what's in here," he whispered as it flickered to life. The familiar opening tune of  _Link's Awakening_ sang out tinnily as he scrambled to turn the volume down.

"Lar?"

 _Shit_. "Yeah, Sal?"

"You good?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." He put the Gear Boy, screen down, on his chest. "Go back to sleep, 'kay?"

Sal shifted in his bed. For a moment he was quiet. Larry thought he might have actually complied, but he eventually sat up and shuffled off the mattress, lying down beside his friend.

"Sal-?"

"'T's bedtime, dude," Sal said simply, shoving the Gear Boy back under the bed. "C'mon. Sleepytime."

Larry smiled. "Sal-"

"Shuddup. Go to sleep." Sal rested his head on Larry's shoulder, wrapping one arm around his chest. "We can talk tomorrow, m'kay?"

A sigh. "Fine. Lemme up though, I gotta do  _something_ to help me sleep." 

Sal whined, but complied anyway, resting his head on Larry's thigh as the taller boy grabbed his sketchbook and a pencil.

Larry tapped the eraser against his lips for a moment, then began to sketch Sal's peaceful, near-sleeping expression. He scribbled it out almost lazily, but payed attention to every detail of every scar on his face. Eventually, he moved on, doodling Gizmo's sleeping form across the room (though he was little more than a fuzzy blob in the darkness), but added a few details he had memorized already. But that too was quickly finished, and he was no more tired than when he had began. He worried his lip with his teeth and looked up at the clock once more.

_1:37 AM_

He sighed as quietly as he could, glancing back down at the page. His hand moved seemingly without his input, and a few moments later . . .

Tears welled in his eyes as he gazed down at his mother's smiling face. He gripped his pencil tighter, preparing to tear it angrily across the page, but instead he simply sat there, tense and shaking.

Sal fidgeted at the change in atmosphere. He opened his eyes and glanced up. "Lar?" He sat up, breath hitching as he caught a glance of the sketches of Lisa on the page below. He wrapped his arms around his friend's shoulders. "I know, Lar," he sighed. "I know."

Larry gripped the arm across his front with both hands and bowed his head. His dark brown hair fell, curtaining his face, and obscuring the drawing as his thin frame was wracked with sobs. 

* * *

Breakfast was quiet. Henry had called the school earlier and told the office that neither of the boys would go in that day, and the secretary had sent her condolences through him, which Larry only acknowledged with a passive grunt as he stabbed at his scrambled eggs. Todd was already on his way to school, but had stopped by before he left to give Larry a small gift from his parents, along with a quick reminder that he was almost always at home, if he was needed.

Sal didn't bring up what happened the night before.

Larry sighed as Henry left for work, pulling Ray and Janis's "gift" out of his pocket and dumping some of the contents into his hand.

Sal snorted. "They seriously gave you a bunch of pot?" 

"At least they know me, y'know?" He removed the lighter from his pocket and lit the end of the joint, taking a long drag and holding it inside for a moment before blowing the smoke out over the kitchen table. He held it out between two fingers for Sal to take, which he did, though hesitantly.

Sal took a hit from the joint and tapped the ashes off onto his now-empty plate. "You holdin' up okay?"

Larry turned towards the floor, gazing into the middle distance with a sigh. He shrugged. "Holdin' up," he assured his friend. "Still doesn' really feel real. Fuckin' sixteen, y'know?" He paused. "Shit. Am I gonna have to go into a group home or some bull?"

Sal shrugged. "Janis and Ray'd prolly adopt you."

"I don't think they'd pass all that inspection shit y'gotta go through."

"Fair." He drummed his fingers on the table. "What about my dad?"

"You guys've got enough to deal with." He took another hit. "Think I could get emancipated?"

Sal considered it for a moment. "We can ask Todd when he gets back from school."

"Yeah, he'd be willin' to help. And then I could just couchsurf, I guess? Hell, maybe Addison'll let me keep stayin' in the basement. I mean he doesn't exactly have people fighting to the death over these apartments."

"Fuck yeah, dude. Todd and Ash and I'll all help you out with food."

"Fuck yeah, man." His smile fell as he handed off the joint. "Think I'll have to do all the repairs now?"

"Probably. I mean, you already do about half of 'em anyway."

Larry tried to laugh. "Was already doin' all of 'em when she got sick," he mumbled.

Sal hesitated in the middle of taking a puff. "Oh, shit. 'M sorry, dude, I didn't-"

"It's fine," Larry said, a bit louder than he meant to. "Just . . ." He sighed, but didn't complain when Sal gave the joint back earlier than he would have under different circumstances. He took another long hit and stood, staring out the kitchen window at the treehouse below. "Least I can have that picture of all of us in my room again, right?" He laughed once, high and hurt. "Shit."

"Larry?"

He propped his elbow against the window and rested his forehead on his forearm, sighing once again. He put the joint to his lips and took another drag from it before letting his hand rest against his thigh with his thumb in his pocket.

"Lar, hey." Sal stood and put one hand on Larry's back. "Y'know I'm here, right? I'm always gonna be here for you."

"Yeah, I know." Larry closed his eyes. His nose pressed against the cool glass pane of the window. (Part of him wished the whole wall would give out and he would just fall, fall, fall, smashing against the pavement below-)

Sal wrapped one arm around Larry's shoulders, then the other around his chest, and just held him for a while. He rubbing soothing circles into his back with his fingers as tears spilled down his own cheeks.

"Sal?" Larry's voice was barely a whisper.

"Yeah, Lar?"

"Thanks."

Sal held his friend tighter. "'Course, dude. I fuckin' love you."

Larry adjusted their position to put his free arm around Sal's shoulders. "Love you too, man."

 

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [through this liquor haze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18093671) by Anonymous 




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